UPDATE: It appears that Tom Cruise will not be returning to the franchise that made him bigger than life, and has officially not been cleared for take off.

Earlier this week, reports surfaced suggesting Cruise was in line to reprise his role as Maverick in the fighter jet film, 22 years after the original.

However, “Access Hollywood” has confirmed those reports are false.

As Tom Cruise continues to hunt for a new project to follow-up Bryan Singer’s Valkyrie, we’ve been hearing a lot of rumours about the possibility of him returning to a familiar franchise in the hopes of re-establishing his bankability. First it was a new Mission Imposible movie that was supposedly on the table, and now this week we have a somewhat unsubstantiated rumour that says there is a possibility of a Top Gun sequel, some 22 years after the original was released.

According to the NY newspaper ‘The Sun’, there is a script floating around for a new Top Gun flick where Maverick is now an instructor who “has to deal with a cocky new female pilot”.